Week 63- JULY- Mouse Trap

First of all, i love improper grammar on T-shirts. Secondly, for all of you who have been to Lagoon you will have a better chance of understanding my week as my week has been a lot like that innocent looking but oh so jerkishly terrifying ride....THE MOUSE TRAP.  You know jerks are fun, but after a while you are just clinging on for dear life wondering, "How many more jerks are there?" wondering if the next jerk will send you over the side at gravities mercy. This week has been a great week! But there have also been a lot of tense jerks. Oh, here comes another scene for ya. I think I've said this before but when i can't find words to describe i find movie scenes. Emperors New Groove. When Ezma and Kronk are taking the roller coaster down to their secret lab. Sometimes as we go through the double twist, stomach drop, 90 degree loop da loop of our week we are a Kronk screaming, "Ezma, put your hands in the air!" other times, and yes i admit a couple days from this week i was an Ezma...hunched over with my hands on the rail, not a smile to be found. OK, so that's not particulary true, this imaging in my head just made me laugh and i just couldn't help myself. Seriously, finding movie scenes to capture moments of you life is sometimes the most hilarious thing to me. My companion now doesn't even ask when i randomly burst out laughing when im writing in my journal.

The 4th of July was celebrated a little early this week and on Monday we went over to a friend of ours who previously served his mission her in Kiev and is now working for the American Embassy. And when a missionary knows that somebody works at an American Embassy that can only think of one thing, access to.....American merchandise. We had all been looking forward to this night for a while and it even took a little pre-preparation. A couple days previously Sister Roberston and I had just finished with our District Meeting and had just been given wads of cash from each missionary who all wanted a slice of America. On our way home we met up with our friend, and stood to the side of the sidewalk to make the exchange. The scene in my head goes as follows:

American provider: "So what do you want?"

Us: "This is the list (pulls out wrinkled napkin with list written on it)

American provider:  Oof. This is gonna be tough, i might have to charge extra.

Us: Just do what you gotta do. When can you get it to us?

American provider: I pick up my drycleaning on Friday, that's when ill give you the call

Us: OK. Now just one more question.....double stuffed...rootbeer....peanut butter cup....how much is that going to cost?

The rest doesn't need to be said, but at that moment i don't think i have ever been so close as to knowing what black market deals feels like. 

But in the end i got my rootbeer float and that was good enough for me!

Tuesday, about an hours ride out of Kiev you would have found two sets of Sister missionaries down in the dirt pulling weeks out from the strawberry gardens, or would have caught us during out "break time" on the recliners, while Sister Nikogosyan read to us about her favorite animal on the planet: the great white shark. As much as i love those warm blooded killing beasts i found much more joy in photographing the most beautifully adorable child on the planet.

This week we also took a little adventure to the American health clinic (well this HAS been quite an American week hasn't it?) for a ultrasound on Sister Robertsons knee, which has been causing her quite a lot of a pain throughout her mission. They told us it was a girl! And by that i mean all they found was a little excess liquid in her knees but not enough to cause extreme pain. Oh the myteries of the body....but let me tell you i have never had such an extreme change of cultures then when i walked from the streets of Ukraine into the waiting room of an American health clinic. It was like slamming strait into an American wall. Yeah...try imagining that one...

I <3 BABUSHKI

On the 4th of July we got a real treat and had a Mission Conference welcoming our new mission president and his family! President and Sister Klebingat are currently somewhere relaxing in Germany and President and Sister Packer have landed!

Somebody got the wrong memo...

#Temple selfie fail

I am so excited to have the Packer family here in Ukraine! I am 100% confident that it is President and Sister Packer are the ones the Lord has chosen to be in Kiev Ukraine as our Mission President and wife. It can't be easy to pack up your life in the time of 2 months and move to an entirely new country and world with 4 children and adopting 104 stripling warriors to boot! I love them so much, and no that's not just because they threw a 4th of July BBQ for us......but it defiantly helps. I did what i could to welcome the family and hearing that the Packers two little girls were suffering from Mac and Cheese deprivation went into my own little Christmas stash (thanks mom and Sage!) and gave Sister Packer some packets. Oh my you should have seen those girls faces. The entire conference, Sophie, their 5 year old daughter was holding those cheese packets to her chest as if it were her prized doll.

And mom, just that you would like to know i had a mom moment when i caught myself with tin foil and a plastic zip lock back cutting watermelon and wrapping leftover hamburger patties in preparation for lunches to come. I truly am your daughter.

 President Packer, after lunch, took us all out and had us all line up in the parking lot. He told us different steps that an investigator takes from the time that he or she meets the missionaries. For example, "Meeting the missionaries and agrees to meet," "agreeing to read the Book of Mormon", "coming to church", "ACTUALLY reading the Book of Mormon." and then with every "step" the investigator took, we would take out own steps as to how we feel that investigator is progressing towards true conversion. The end of the parking lot being the finish line. In the end all of us had actually gone way too far and funnily enough some missionaries were already across the lot before the investigator had even completed all the steps! The moral of the lesson was, THIS WORK IS NOT ABOUT JUST DOING, IT'S ABOUT LETTING THE SPIRIT IN AND CHANGING THE PERSON WITHIN."

And finally the night we had all been waiting for. I had offically been made the leader of activities and so put on my hard hat and went to work ordering the district around to prepare for our Minute to Win It night. It took a lot of Kontiks, milk, hot dogs, ping pong balls, watermelon, tights, flour, M&M's, juice, cookie straws, chopsticks, and a LOT of time and effort and needless to say STRESS but the outcome was worth it! In the end everybody had a great time, and our potential investigator, showing up in a very revealing crochet top (when in Ukraine) is very excited to meet again! We even had two homeless men show up just in time for the hotdog eating contest! At the end they went around and collected every scrap of bun, emptied out every drop of juice for the box, and at the end of the night i caught them digging through our trash bins for anything they might have missed inbetween. Well, even if we dont get an investigator from that night we can be sure that there will be two homeless men with full stomaches.

I hope you all had a wonderfully patriotic 4th of July! In less than a week i will be hitting my year mark in Ukraine! You know you have been away from America awhile when you get a lump in your throat while singing "America the Beautiful." Wow, i really am my mother.

I just want you all to know that i love my Savior Jesus Christ. I may not have a lot of investigators to teach, i may not be teaching Argentinian weddings or be having my 25th baptism in Tonga, but i am so grateful to me a missionary of the Lord in Kiev, Ukraine. I know that the Lord's hand is in each of our lives and each trial we face and every awkward baby step we take brings us that much closer to our Heavenly Father if we just exercise a little faith and press on. I learned something big from President Packer this week, it's, "IM EXCTIED TO IMPROVE." Perfection is an unachievable goal, but progression is 100% achievable with the Lord help, and repentance, and humility, and strawberries with smetana. 

I love you all and thank you so much for all your prayers!

XOXOXOXO

-Cectpa Po

Week 62- JUNE- 100

*Sniff sniff sniffle cough cough sniffle* Welcome to the soundtrack of my past week. The bug has finally landed, and im not meaning the fat cochroach that we found chilling in our kitchen sink this morning. That bug is now made it's way through many miles of pipeage and into the Black Sea by now. No, this bug is the sick bug and i swear if i have to blow my nose one more time im going to blow. Whether that is blowing up or just blowing my nose, either way, blowing will be done.

Im sure the day that the entire district of Perchersky going to do service in the rain didn't help so much, but it was oh so worth it.

If you haven't gotten the idea I LOVE SERVICE. Sniffle or cough i am there in a pair of shorts and a pre taco sweat stained long sleeve to do the job. A member of our ward was needing a lot of yard work done, and so gave us all a call saying if we serve her she'll serve us a good meal, and that is an offer that we just couldn't put down. It was a constant rain all day, and so we all dug into her old clothes bags slipping on whatever form of warm clothes we could find including old sweaters, purple sequined jackets and overalls. I found the the motherload and found myself a good pair of jeans that i swear had an extra 50 lbs sewn right into the them.

I think i reached the cherry topper for embarrassing moments this week. I learned the importance of always having a companion by your side for when you get yourself into...not so proud moments. Now i wont go into details but let's just say that i learned the hard way that when you are taking off a sweater, to make sure that your arms are only going out of the sweater and not the shirt that you are wearing underneath it. Also, next time ask BEFOREHAND for the Elders to leave the room. 

This sweet member put on an entire Ukrainian feast for us! She was cooking a big pot of borsh for us as we were picking some strange looking, yet oh so tasty berries. The borsh was delicious though the boiled chicken leg of greshka (to me the most bile dirt tasting grain on the planet) became a second coarse to the Elder sitting next to me.

 An afternoon with the district in the cellos? Mmmm mmm good.

So this week we sadly didn't get to see any of our investigators! All 2 of them! Ina has been busy with work this week, and Roman has not even been in Kiev for the past week. For any of you who may watch the news, there is a city called Donesk, which is the Easter most part of Ukraine, and right now it is not a pretty sight. Roman's mother lives in Donesk and so Roman went over to get his mother and get her out of the war zone. They were able to escape together but are now in another city and trying to find a way back to Kiev at the moment so the only communication we have with him is over the phone. Good news is though...he's still reading the Book of Mormon!

Honestly this week has just been a lot of preparation for our upcoming activity on Saturday, and seeing how Sister Roberston and I are the head of activities we definently have our hands full, i mean GOODNESS i can see why my mother never did birthday parties! It's a scary day when you are getting a headache trying to do the math of calculating the approximation of attendies versus the amount of hotdogs you need to buy for the hotdog eating contest. Oh yes, we're bring America to Ukraine. The other day while working on designing the invitations in the church we found ourselves playing a game of hide and seek in the church as we thought we heard footsteps, but peeked out our heads in the  hallway to see nobody. So the immediate fear is that another homeless man came into the church to get himself a free sink bath in the bathroom. I have never been so hesitant to open a bathroom door....i guess the trick was on us as nobody was to be found. Or he is just really fast.

This week was just a tought week on the mind. You know those days when all you want to do is focus, but you just can't seem to focus? As if your mind has a brain of it's own? Now that's a scary thought...oh and thanks mom for the coloring pages. Looks like you recieved revelation after all as they have now become the best form of therapy for me. My little spiritual food for you this week is this DAILY BREAD.

This week we was our last week under President and Sister Klebingat. I have to give that man a round of applause for making it with me through the, so far, hardest 13 months of my life. His last full day as our President we sent him a little farewell and this is what we got back. It's so sad to see him go, and just like like he's gone and President Packer has landed! Speaking of which, which really isn't much of a speaking of which. The other day as i was just stepping out of the metro a man said to me, "Go back to Utah!" and i was just like, "Excuuuuse me?! Oh do you di int!" and then proceeded to bash him like a black girl in my mind. I think it's probably a good thing that im not serving in a native English speaking mission.

There was another time in the metro when i was waiting for our train and saw next to me two nice woman, and i thought, "Oh those two nice woman would look good in Relief Society" and was just about to make MY move when i saw one of the woman make HER move on the other woman.......oh.

This is just what happens when you are stuck in the church with no time to go home, two packs of raman in your purse, and no supply of utensils. You gotta do what you gotta do.

Last night we had a lesson with  a group of spiritual giants, aka retired mission presidents, two ward missionaries, and two returned missionaries. All 6 of them and a baby live together in an apartment that i swear is no bigger than my living room at home. Mom and dad, you about the only ones who can image this. For the rest of you all...that's small. Despite being spiritual giants that did not stop them from playing a soccer game behind our backs on mute. There i was in the middle of my teaching saying, "And you see, that's why we are here on Earth, that's our....." when all of a sudden the once mission president jumps up and yells, "GOAL!!!" I must admit it was the most excited and involved participation on a lesson i have ever had.

Happy 4th of July!

XOXOXOXO

-Сестра Ро